A great fighting game, but not a whole lot of variety or new features, and the story falls short.

User Rating: 7.5 | SoulCalibur IV PS3
I'm kinda disappointed in the performance of this game. For one thing, there's hardly anything new in this game, and a lot of stuff missing. There's no shop option(unless it's in Tower of Lost Souls mode), the story mode is too short and doesn't live up to the previous game's stories of the characters. Once again, they have a story for every character, but they kinda always did, and the letdown is that they are so short with no cutscenes, only a few boxes of dialogue here and there, and seemingly pointless encounters. I don't get who Angol, one of the final people you battle, has to do with the series' storyline, and it's never explained, unfortunately. Also, a few game modes are missing, and there are no new game modes. Yes, online must be a pretty exciting addition to the series up to date, but couldn't there have been more multiplayer modes like a Team Battle or Tournament mode?
Despite all that, the graphics are very good-looking and the multiplayer isn't bad. It would've been better if there were more modes besides a basic unranked/ranked versus battle to play offline/online, but it's gameplay can still prove really addictive. There are a few gameplay additions like armor(I kinda like this feature, it makes your opponent more vulnerable if you unleash heavy blows and destroy their armor), and soul gauge, which makes your opponent fatally vulnerable to a critical finishing blow if they guard too much. It's also great to see that most of the likeable characters return, with a bunch of exciting new ones, and the returning ones have been changed changed in better ways.

I got this game, but the $60 price tag is kinda a rip-off to me for a game that falls kinda short on replay value. I would recommend this game to arcade-fighter fans, and other fighting game fans, as its multiplayer is guaranteed to outlive the single player campaign by a long shot. Again, it's not a bad game, but it could've been alot better.